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Levanta
Levanta is a fictional Middle Eastern nation which also reveres a figure known as a pharaoh. Levanta has allowed a world tour of its national treasures including the statue of the Golden Pharaoh. The treasures of Levanta were on display at a museum in Washington D.C. when Oscar Goldman assigned Steve Austin to escort the treasures back to Levanta at the end of the exhibit. According to Goldman, diplomatic relations between Levanta and the U.S. were shaky. The loss or destruction of any of the treasures could create further problems between the nations. ("The Golden Pharaoh") Deconstructed The existence of Levanta may represent an alternate history in which the Hala'ib Triangle developed into a sovereign nation. The Hala'ib Triangle is a disputed region on the border of Egypt and Sudan. The dispute is the result of conflicting boundaries drawn in 1899 and 1902. When Sudan became independent in 1956, Egypt regarded the territorial boundary of 1899 as the border between the two countries, while Sudan held to the 1902 administrative boundary. As a result, both Egypt and Sudan claimed sovereignty over the territory. Assuming an alternate history in which individuals or parties may have settled the dispute, the territory representing Levanta could have been established as an independent nation as early as 1899 or as late as 1956. Real World Real world politics and pop culture provide the backdrop for the episode "The Golden Pharoah," which premiered in February 1976. This episode may also be one of the earliest examples of "Tut-mania" which dominated pop culture in the late 1970's. Tut-mania reached its high point in 1978 and 1979 as exemplified by Steve Martin's hit song "King Tut" released in April 1978. Levanta takes its name from "Levant," which is an old term referring to the Eastern Meditterranean lands between Anatolia and Egypt. Levanta is a fictional stand-in for Egypt. The Treasures of Tutankhamun world tour took place from 1972-1981 and including some of the rarest tresures of Egypt. The politics of the Cold War and the Middle East were thick in the background of the world tour. The tour began in London in 1972 and then toured the Soviet Union from 1973 to 1975. The tour's last stop in the USSR was in Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine. In 1973, Egypt's government had a closer relationship with the USSR than the USA. Egyptian officials had considered plans to cancel the tour of King Tut's treasures in America. Politics of the Middle East, including the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War, contributed to the shaky relationship of Egypt and the U.S.A. during this period. In June 1974, President Richard M. Nixon visited Egypt and requested that Egyptian president Anwar Sadat permit the tour of King Tut's treasures in the U.S. The U.S. tour included more cities that the Soviet tour and included three additional treasures that were not included in the Soviet tour. With all of the political pressure surrounding this museum tour, if the President of the United States had had a cyborg agent working for the U.S., he also might have wanted him to protect the Treasures of King Tut. Category:Locations Category:Fictional Geography Category:Middle East